Editorial and Critique Services: Debra Doyle, Ph.D.

For a flat fee of $100, I will critique
and line-edit your short story or the first chapter/first 5000 words of
your novel. (Novelists who later opt for a full line edit/critique will
be entitled to a $100 discount on their fee.)

Hello. My name is Debra Doyle. I have an earned Ph.D. in English from the University of Pennsylvania (1981).

For business, I write. About the only thing I've ever done for money besides writing--if we don't count a stint working in the dishroom of the cafeteria while I was in college, which, really, let's not--has been teaching: Freshman composition (under the various trendy names it's gone by over the past two or three decades), which wasn't really that much fun; and fiction (yearly at the Viable Paradise workshop since 1997), which was and is considerably more enjoyable.

Along the way, I've become a published author. I've written or co-written around thirty novels and around thirty short stories. I've written, and been paid for, non-fiction essays. I've edited myself and my co-author, I've been edited by the best, and I've edited other peoples' works. I'm good at it.

Now-a-days, lots of folks are self-publishing. I'm doing it myself. If you're planning to self-publish, and if you haven't yet heard the advice that since you're now a publisher you need to hire an editor, well, you will.

Other folks want to learn to write. A one-on-one session with an experienced teacher can teach you to fish. If you know what I mean.

Therefore: I am putting my writing and teaching expertise up for sale.

What I will do: Critique and line-edit your novel. A critique generally runs 3-5 pages, and covers structural and developmental issues. If I think that your novel has reached or can reach a level which makes it suitable for submission, I'll tell you so. If I don't, I'll be honest about it and tell you that, as well.

What I won't do (because no one can): Guarantee that your novel will be commercially published. Guarantee that your novel will be elevated by my services to publishable quality--I'll only undertake to make it a better novel than it was before, and to provide you with what I hope will be a learning experience in the process. Think of the whole thing as a private tutorial, if that makes more sense.

Fields I'll work in: Fantasy; science fiction (I only undertake to vet the fiction part; you're on your own with the science half); historical fiction, alternate-historical fiction, and historical fantasy; mystery; dark fantasy and paranormal. I have experience with both YA and adult fiction.